IBM Signs Cloud Financial Services Deals

Big Blue has expanded its presence as a cloud provider in the financial services industry.

IBM this week announced it has signed cloud services deals with two financial services companies in Australia and New Zealand.

Retail and commercial bank Westpac New Zealand has selected IBM to be its private cloud technology provider as the bank embarks on a digital transformation project. The five-year agreement is part of an extensive services and technology contract, which includes Westpac migrating some of its business-critical IT systems into IBM’s Auckland datacenter.

According to Westpac, the deal with IBM is part of a digital transformation from a traditional bank to one that uses cloud computing, thus enabling it to address key market trends such as social and mobile adoption. In a prepared statement, Westpac’s Interim CIO Jason Millett said IBM’s private cloud platform would further enable increased development of Westpac’s digital capabilities as it responds to customer demands for a more personalised, convenient way of banking.

Additionally, IBM announced it has signed a five-year, multi-million dollar agreement with Veda, a provider of credit information and analysis in Australia and New Zealand. The agreement extends Veda's existing strategic outsourcing relationship with IBM, which will now include cloud services.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio

Yeah very different from the secrecy around cloud use among American banks. I always hear things at conferences like "You'd be surprised by some of the big organizations using Amazon cloud services/Google apps for the enterprise." But we never find out who those organizations are or what benefits they've seen.

We often see new innovative ways that banks can use technology coming from Australia and New Zealand. They seem to be a few years ahead of their American counterparts when it comes to digital transformation. So I would think that banks there are more comfortable with relying more on the cloud.

Yes, very true. Funny, it seems like we have been talking about cloud for ages, but in reality it has only been a few years. Although financial services is slower than other verticals, it has made progress.

I think they're realzing at this point they cannot ignore cloud services and have to figure out a way to incorporate them, despite regulatory hurdles, internal opposition and other factors you mention.

I have seen a few other cloud-related deals happening in the financial services space lately. Does this mean that banks are finally finding ways to address security, regulatory and privacy concerns? And, more importantly, are banks able to figure out ways to overcome unnecessary internal opposition to cloud?